


Piano Wire

by allsorrowsborne



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Piano, Revenge, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:07:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23360659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsorrowsborne/pseuds/allsorrowsborne
Summary: Barcelona. Villanelle plays piano. Eve visits. Anger, violence and a splash of blood.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 20
Kudos: 104





	Piano Wire

**Author's Note:**

> A very quick 60 minute fic, prompted by imunbreakabledude's piano request

It has been a long time since she played. Years in fact. Anna used to like it, would stand near her shoulder and sigh wistfully, the young and wild Oksana teasing beauty from the keys. Play now, play later. It was too easy. Fingers and melodies, their endless exchange.

She thought she would play again in London, when she saw the piano in the MI6 flat. But the days went quickly and the nights were crowded and somehow she never had the time. Looking back, she should have made it happen, carved the hours out of her day. Maybe it would have helped with the emptiness. Maybe it would have helped with Eve.

No. Not Eve. She doesn’t think of Eve anymore. Eve is dead and she’s never been happier. Here, in Barcelona, she’s truly moved on. A new love. A new home. Even a piano. And she has all the time in the world to play.

The piano was old. She had it serviced this morning. It’s been tuned and the broken strings have been replaced. She sits there now, on the padded piano bench, flexing her fingers. Strangely shy to play it again. Nobody’s here. Perhaps that’s the reason. She has performance anxiety when she’s alone.

Where to begin? She tries a few scales to remember the feeling. Her joints pulse as she strikes a key. Action. Hammer. She smiles at an imagined brutality. Extends her fingers to cover octaves, welcoming the stretch across her palms.

She’s not going to play a national anthem. She’s chasing the melancholy of a minor key. She makes her choice. Brahms Hungarian Dance no 5 in F sharp minor. Sadness but with drama to spare. She plays it from memory – her fantastic memory – and lets herself get lost in its pull.

Villanelle doesn’t hear the creak of the door, the feet on the rug. She senses Eve’s presence when it’s too late.

\---

Eve can’t fucking believe it. She’s lost everything. Her job, her friends, her moral core. She’s been stripped down to unfiltered fury. And when she strips, she just sees that scar.

She will not accept it. She is more than the trauma of Villanelle’s violence. She is more than the echo of gunshots and axes and betrayals and screams. Eve knew she would find her one more time. To spit in her face and leave.

And there she is. Villanelle in domestic bliss. Playing piano of all fucking things. Eve feels her wounds rip open and hears herself roar. The anger that she’s nursed like whisky spills out all over the sun-bleached floor.

Eve came here to fight her. She came here to scream. She came here because she’s been pushed to the edge, dismissed, neglected, while Villanelle, glorious, steals center stage.

She didn’t come here for this.

And yet.

Eve is over her. Reaching down from behind that bench. The discarded piano wire cuts her hands as she wraps it tight around Villanelle’s throat. Heat runs through her, chaos and focus, her tank top damp and sticking to skin. She pulls hard, leaning backward, losing balance and toppling down. Villanelle’s hands are on her forearms, traveling with her, a strangled sound escaping her lips.

Eve doesn’t let go. She’s not letting go. Villanelle uses her legs for leverage and pushes back into Eve’s lap. Fuck, she could rock her, could hold her, could kill her. She tightens the wire. Not letting go. 

Villanelle’s hands slide down Eve’s forearms, passing her wrists and reaching her thumbs. Eve waits for the pull and snap of bone. Villanelle’s strength will break her grip. Villanelle’s skill will end this show.

It doesn’t happen. Pianist’s fingers touch Eve softly, soothing the veins that protrude with exertion. Feather-tapping a familiar melody, a tumbling strain that empties and offers, an outpouring of hate and love. Like she’s trying to hold her hand.

What the fuck?

Eve looks down. Villanelle has twisted her head far back, exposing her bruised and bloody throat, so she can see Eve one more time. Eve is alive. Eve is killing. Villanelle’s eyes glisten with pride. Eve takes it in. What a prick. Seducing Eve as she tries to kill.

\---

Eve fails, of course. She doesn’t kill her. They both always fail when they play that score. Knives. Bullets. Piano wire. A tit for tat that never leads anywhere. An ostinato that will soon grow old.

Eve drops the wire and they breathe together. No way forward, no way out. The blood glistens on Villanelle’s neck and Eve can’t resist it. She bends down, tastes it, and cries.


End file.
